


If We Pretend Together

by Zillabird



Series: A Conflict of Interest [7]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Unrequited Crush, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:51:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zillabird/pseuds/Zillabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Tim and Damian were getting intimate, Jason and Dick were finding a compromise. And after, Tim and Damian decide to take things into their own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If We Pretend Together

**Author's Note:**

> Just a reminder that Robinpile is the eventual goal of this series. Shoutout to my cowriter KaRaEa who is writing every other fic in this series. And kicking ass.
> 
> Sorry for the late update on my end, computer problems are a tragedy.

“Why can’t you do it?” Damian demanded.

Because Dick knew Damian needed to get out of the Manor. “Because if I go in or out of costume, I’ll attract attention. You’re in the limelight less, you can sneak in, in plain clothes. All you’re doing is dropping off the murder weapon with Tim.”

All he got in response was a huff. Then the brick was snatched off the table and Dick looked up in time to see Damian disappear up the stairs of the Cave. He waited in Bruce’s chair for a moment and then stood, moving towards the costumes in their clear cases and passing his own. Instead, he stopped in front of a bloody black Kevlar costume with a bat insignia on the front. His palm pressed against the glass, heart tugging in his chest at the untouched costume, before he returned back to his own and placed his palm against the scanner. The glass slid open and Dick grabbed his own costume to get changed.

Half an hour passed and found Dick dealing with his emotions in the worst kind of way. Every punch was a way to get rid of the memory of them lowering Bruce’s casket in the ground, was a reminder that his attempt at more with Jason had ended poorly, was a reminder of the way Damian had looked at him and told him that Dick wasn’t his brother.

That last one, the pain was still fresh and it felt better when the criminal’s nose crunched under his fist.

“You’re particularly violent tonight,” Jason said.

Dick spun and let go of the mugger in his hands. The bloody criminal dropped to the ground, curling up when he hit the asphalt. “It’s been a long night.”

“Doesn’t mean you get to send them to the hospital for traction,” Jason replied. His hand was hovering next to his gun and Dick, well, that was the first time he’d apparently scared the cop enough to do that. Not since the first night they met. “You can’t keep doing this, Nightwing. It’s getting worse.”

Was it? Dick hadn’t noticed an uptake in violence but maybe the blood all seeped together. “I haven’t killed anyone.”

“That’s not the black and white line in the sand that you think it is. And it still doesn’t change the fact that your violent assaults against these criminals is illegal too,” Jason said.

Dick took a step back. “You won’t shoot me. I’m unarmed.”

Jason’s lips thinned but his hand lowered. “Doesn’t mean I can’t catch you.”

“You can try,” Dick said, and then took off once more.

The footsteps pounded against the pavement behind him, smacking into puddles where water had collected from the rain earlier that morning. When the light of the streetlight caught them, shadows danced against the brick walls of apartment buildings and rundown shops with broken windows and bars on the windows – to keep out thieves.

“Nightwing!” Jason called. “Stop! Talk to me! Maybe I can help!”

He couldn’t and Dick knew that. Because he was an outsider, a cop. He wasn’t one of them.

He pushed off the ground, grabbing the lowest rung of the ladder to the building’s roof and climbed up quickly. The metal creaked when Jason grabbed onto it to and climbed after him.

Some nights their chases were fun and exhilarating. They were almost playful in their tone, enjoyable and friendly. Knowing that Jason didn’t want to catch him almost as much as Dick wanted to be caught. They ended in kisses. Never more than that.

Jason had made it clear it couldn’t go further, not as long as Dick was wearing a mask.

Dick understood.

But tonight, tonight was like the other nights. Tonight was like when Dick warned Damian away because he knew Jason was serious. He knew Jason wasn’t playing games. Dick told Damian to get as far away as possible because whatever Jason had seen that day made him _need_ to put them in cuffs by the end of the night. And while Dick didn’t mind, knew he was capable of evading the detective, he wasn’t going to risk Damian that way.

Some nights, like tonight, Dick knew that Jason saw him as a criminal first.

Dick was starting to understand Bruce’s feelings towards the police.

The hesitations were getting fewer as Dick leapt across the space between buildings and, unlike the first few times, Jason followed immediately over. Long gone was his fear, now Jason could leap across rooftops with almost the same speed as Dick could. He learned quickly.

It made getting away harder.

He slid into a crevice, a hollow space in the building for a gargoyle to sit. Dick joined it and pulled his phone out.

_Hey, little D,_

_I’ll be home late. Ran in2 Det. Todd, can’t shake him._

_D._

“You can’t take the law into your own hands,” Jason said. He was close but not close enough, not close enough to see Dick. Just calling out, trying to spook him like a hunter releasing a dog into the forest to scare up the birds. “You know that or you wouldn’t wear a mask.”

Dick took a deep breath and then pulled himself up onto the ledge, crouching low on the edge to provide the smallest target in case Detective Todd ever did decide to pull his weapon and actually fire it. “Maybe I just don’t trust the law in your hands.”

To his credit, Jason didn’t look all that offended. “You’re free to sign up for the police academy just like anyone else if you think you can do a better job.”

Dick scoffed. “What happened today, Detective?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason asked.

“Yesterday you were more interested in watching me run than catching me. Tomorrow you’ll give me the time to stop for a slice at Mario’s,” Dick said. “But today you saw something that made you chase me here and try to talk me right out of my mask. So what did you see today?”

“The other side of that mask,” Jason replied. “Another crazy motherfucker with a story and a scheme and a mask on his face who wants to play games with us.”

Joker, maybe. Riddler. Penguin. The long, long list of villains that terrorized Gotham seemed to only grow longer.

“They say you brought them here,” Jason said. “You and the kid and the Bat and your kind.”

“We didn’t,” Dick said.

“I’d say that too so I didn’t have to feel responsible for it,” Jason argued.

“We didn’t bring them here,” Dick said. “We just made them easier to find.”

That’s what Dick had finally realized. These crazies? These villains? The ones that wore masks so they could be loud and proud? They were just as crazy and evil and violent without their masks. Bruce donning the Batman? It hadn’t created a sudden increase in psychopaths. He just encouraged them to step into the limelight, and it was so much easier to catch a bad guy when he set up his own spotlight to shine on himself.

“Do you honestly think that Joker would have been an everyday Joe if Batman hadn’t taken to the city? Or do you think he might just be quieter about it? Or maybe he wouldn’t have been quiet at all. Maybe he would have just chosen another symbol to pair himself up with,” Dick said. “Maybe that symbol would have been you.”

Jason was silent.

“If you want to arrest me, do it,” Dick said, finally standing. “But don’t do it because you think we’re the reason that those crazies come out every night. Do it because you honestly don’t think I’m doing the best thing for the city.”

He wouldn’t.

Dick honestly believed that. Jason wouldn’t arrest him.

Until Jason pulled out the cuffs and slapped them on Dick’s wrists. “You’re under arrest for vigilantism. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney…”

~~~

Jason was trying to try scare him. Not even scare him, just shake him up a little. Prove that he was still a good cop and that he could still do his job. Prove that Nightwing wasn’t Jason’s soft spot.

He’d succeeded if the look on Nightwing’s face was anything to go by.

The man hadn’t expected Jason to go through with it and, if Jason were honest, until he’d felt the cuffs click into place around the man’s black and blue clad wrists? He hadn’t expected himself to follow through either.

_“Do it because you honestly don’t think I’m doing the best thing for this city.”_

Was dressing up and donning a mask the best thing for this city? If any city could claim that right, it was Gotham. She was a dramatic disaster. A show. She deserved caped crusaders and nighttime justice and the _drama_ of it all.

That didn’t make it right and it certainly didn’t make it legal.

“What do you think this will accomplish?” Nightwing asked.

Hell if Jason knew. “It’ll get a vigilante off the streets.”

“You still haven’t taken my mask off.”

Jason knew that. Of course he knew that. But once he took it off… things changed. This became real. He couldn’t take it back.

“You’re not sure that what you’re doing is the right thing,” Nightwing said.

“So now you’re a criminal profiler?” Jason asked dryly.

“Yes, actually,” Nightwing said. “There’s a little more to all of this than putting on a mask and punching things.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Jason replied.

Nightwing stopped walking, causing Jason to have to stop as well or drag him along. “I’ve trained, Detective. Probably more than you have. I’ve studied and spent hours and hours learning how to do your job _and more_ because this city needs the more and the police isn’t prepared to deal with that. I’m trying to help and I’ve sacrificed more than you can even imagine in order to be there for the city when the cops can’t.”

“So you’re a martyr,” Jason said.

“I do something good for this city,” Nightwing asked. “And unlike you, I don’t get paid for it. I still have to wake up tomorrow and be someone else.”

Jason paused at that. It wasn’t a new fact but it was one that hadn’t felt real to Jason until this moment. “Have we ever met?”

“What?”

“Out of your costume, face to face, have we met?” Jason demanded.

Nightwing was silent for a moment and then replied, “No.”

Jason felt better then, knowing that he wasn’t so terrible a detective as to have completely missed the true identity of Nightwing standing in front of him.

“We’ve crossed paths, though,” Nightwing admitted.

“You know how unfair that is?” Jason demanded. “You know who I am but I have no idea who is wearing your mask.”

“You could have pulled it off at any time now,” Nightwing said. “Maybe you just don’t want to know.”

“I want to know,” Jason muttered.

“Then wh-“

“Because ripping it off your face didn’t seem like the right way to do it,” Jason snapped, before Nightwing could even finish the question.

The answer seemed like it surprised the vigilante.

He led him into the station. The area was mostly empty by now. There wasn’t much staff this late at night, the few who were on duty were usually out running the beat. If Jason took him through the back then he avoided the night staff up front.

“You need to keep better control over yourself,” Jason said, finally acknowledging the truth that he was going to be letting Nightwing go at the end of this. “Maybe next time it’s not me out there. You can’t cross those lines. It has to be more than just not sending them to us in body bags. There’s a difference out there, a visible difference, between you beating them to subdue them and you beating them because something happened out of the mask.”

Nightwing looked sufficiently chastised. “Come on. There’s handcuff keys in my desk. You’ll need to get out of here pretty quickly.”

But Jason realized he’d lost his captive’s attention and stared at the man before clearing his throat. When Nightwing still didn’t respond he turned around to face the scene that had apparently stolen the man’s attention and his jaw dropped.

“What the hell? That’s my desk!”

The bodies moving together, naked and….wow, at least it was attractive people having sex on his desk, stopped and then one sat up and looked at him. “If you don’t mind we are not yet finished.”

Jason’s eyes went to the other body and then widened. “Tim?”

A flush colored the skin of the older boy who tried to sit up only to have the tan, young man push him back down.

“Hi, Detective Todd.” The kid’s voice cracked.

Jason’s eyes narrowed as he spun on Nightwing, the man bent over and laughing. “Shut up before I arrest you for real.” Back to the two boys. “What the hell do you think that you’re doing?”

“I’m sorry, Jason. This was a bad ide-“ Tim didn’t far before Damian cut him off.

“This was a brilliant idea,” Damian muttered. “It was my idea.”

“And who are you?” Jason demanded.

Dick was impressed with Damian’s ability to keep himself from looking at Dick, from giving them away. Instead, Damian’s shoulders pulled back and his chin lifted giving him every air of the spoiled rich brat that he played for the media. “I’m Damian Wayne. Who are _you_?”

“Detective Jason Todd,” Jason replied. “Get off my desk!”

Damian scowled and didn’t move right away, only moving – in fact – when Tim tried to sit up again and pushed on his chest. Damian huffed and bent down, picking up the clothes he’d scattered in his attempt to get Tim belly up on the desk. “It was convenient.”

“It’s not yours,” Jason said. He walked over and made a face. “I’m going to have to bleach it.”

“You overreact,” Damian said.

“Body parts that are not mine were all over it,” Jason argued. Tim still looked horrified and Jason turned on him, using the man’s silence to his advantage. “And you, what were you thinking?”

Silence. Jason could see something turning in his head before the younger man opened his mouth. “I just wanted my boyfriend to fuck me somewhere I’d have a hard time forgetting every day at work.”

Jason was too distracted by the determination in Tim’s expression to notice the surprised look on his prisoner’s face, or the surprised look on Tim’s supposed boyfriend’s face.

“Oh.”

~~~~

Dick and Damian didn’t speak to one another until they returned to the Manor. Damian was quiet, not all that remarkable since Dick usually thought he was too quiet, but Dick was silent too. It was still fresh in his mind, the mental image of two bodies rippling, rising and falling as one. It was hard to mesh that image with his broth- _Damian_ , and the young forensic scientist they’d been working into their close knit team.

“I wasn’t aware that you could be quiet for any length of time,” Damian said.

Which didn’t make Dick feel any better. If Damian wanted him to be quiet, really wanted him to be quiet, then he was smart enough to know that not pointing it out would keep it that way. But he’d pointed it out and Dick was left to wonder if Damian wanted him to talk out of concern for Dick or because the boy had grown so used to his constant yammering that he was uncomfortable without the background noise.

Either way, Dick felt his heart warmed. Touched at Damian’s emotions.

“I didn’t realize that you and Tim were dating,” Dick said.

Damian’s lips parted but the words stayed inside of him. He closed his lips, pursing them, and then opened them once more to say, quite vaguely, “I don’t believe we’d really discussed labels as of yet.”

“But you agree with him,” Dick said.

Damian’s eyes flickered over to Dick. The elder felt the unmistakable tingle of eyes picking him apart, being analyzed. “I do not disagree with him if he wants that relationship.”

A strange way to answer that.

“Well… I’m happy for you,” Dick said, the words felt bland on his tongue. Like he didn’t mean them, but he had every reason to mean them. A relationship, someone for Damian to care about and who cared about him back? That was everything Dick had wanted for the man. “Really, really happy.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed but then he nodded. “Of course you are.” A pause before he stood and began the climb up the stairs to the Manor once more. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

~~~

Tim yawned and climbed out of bed. The room was still dark, though that was to be expected when the clock read three in the morning. He’d much rather be in bed but his bladder was having none of it.

Minutes later, he shook wet hands from the sink as he walked back across the hardwood floor of his apartment bedroom.

“I cannot tell if you’re a fool or a genius.”

As Tim jumped, a good several inches from the ground, and his heartrate skyrocketed he could only think that it was a good thing the intruder hadn’t made his presence known prior to Tim’s trip to the bathroom because he’d have made quite the mess on the floor.

“Damian?” Tim demanded, quite sure that he recognized that familiar lilted speech anywhere.

Even his bedroom at three in the morning.

“Tt.” The younger man stepped out, wearing black clothes to help blend into the darkness. The soft glow of a streetlight outside was the only thing that lit up his face at all. “Who else?”

“I don’t know, a serial killer?” Tim demanded. “What are you doing in my apartment?”

Damian sneered and crossed his arms over his chest. “I would think as your _boyfriend_ you would be well used to me making unannounced visits.”

Tim felt a flush go to his cheeks. He honestly should have expected this. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sure that was the last thing you were expecting and having to explain it to Dick probably wasn’t fun-“

“I didn’t correct Grayson’s assumption that you were telling the truth,” Damian interrupted.

Tim hesitated and then slowly continued. “All I could think about was you pining after Dick-“

“I don’t pine,” Damian said.

“-and me pining after Jason.” And Dick, though Tim was smart enough not to say that in front of Damian. “And I wanted them to know that we were better than that. Stronger than that. I wanted them to know we were doing fine on our own.”

“So you pretended that we were in a relationship,” Damian supplied.

Tim cautiously nodded. “Yes. But I’ll tell Jason the truth tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Damian said instantly.

“What?” Tim asked.

“Don’t tell him,” Damian said. He took a step back towards the shadows and the window. “We shall keep up this charade.”

“What? Why?” Tim asked.

Damian didn’t answer, just slipped through the open window onto the fire escape and left Tim standing alone in his bedroom.


End file.
